Jody Kriss Uses Courts of New York to Make Money?

Jody Kriss, the principal owner of East River Partners and former CFO of the Bayrock Group, has been involved in a large number of multimillion dollar lawsuits since leaving Bayrock in 2009. An analysis of the lawsuits Kriss is involved in shows a clear intent to increase capital for his own company by means of extortion and blackmail in order to receive settlement money. This money would most likely be used to create his own real estate stockpile.

According to a website that is dedicated to reveal the dirty tactics of Jody Kriss, he is involved in at least 5 lawsuits that he either filed as a plaintiff or fought as a defendant since 2010. The lawsuits include a billion-dollar case filed against hundreds of people that were involved in the building of Trump SoHo, an establishment that costs $450 million. They also include the $20-million lawsuit that was filed against a blogger from New York City wherein Kriss used dead Holocaust survivors as plaintiffs, Moreover, there is also the lawsuit filed against the East River Partners with regards to the harmful exposure of infants and families to lead paint and asbestos. All these were pointed towards Kriss attempting to extort quick cash without any regard for other people’s livelihood.

Jody Kriss filed a case against his former company, Bayrock Group, claiming that the company was just a racketeering front, suing them for $100 million worth of punitive damages. This is somehow one of the interesting cases under his wings as he has been the company’s CFO; thus, he should’ve had an idea about several financial decisions of the company as they had to go through him first. This case which was filed in May of 2010 is still sitting dormant primarily because of the way the evidences were claimed by Kirss and his legal team (Richard Lerner and Frederick Oberlander). The said evidence was obtained illegally as they stole it from the hard drive of the company; it contained confidential and sensitive information about attorney-client communications. Currently, it has been sealed since it places great risks to the safety of the defendants. As a result, the lawyers of Jody Kriss are now under investigation for criminal contempt of the court.

After many years of trial, Jody Kriss then filed a suit against Salvatore Lauria, one of the managing partners of Bayrock Group, on behalf of a deceased family of Holocaust survivors (the Estate of Ernest Gottdiener). This case, however, is still looking for new information to arrive in order to push through.

Three years after Kriss first filed a case against Bayrock Group, he then filed another suit. According to some sources, the demand was up from $100 million to $1 billion. In fact, the list of defendants continues to grow which included several government employees, high-end real estate developers, insurance companies, and hundreds of others. This too was put on hold, because of Kriss stole the hard drive of the company which contains dangerous information which could put the lives of the defendants at risk.

On top of these cases, an article which was released through New York City blog Queens Politics reveled that Kriss is a serial plaintiff out to make money using the Courts of New York as pawn. The blog even claimed that he is associated with the Russian Mafia as evidenced by a highly trafficked NY Post article about Kriss. Kriss immediately demanded $20 million settlement with the blog owner, Adam Lombardi. This case is still ongoing, and has hit many snags.

Jody Kriss – Russian Mafia Connect?

There are at least 5 major lawsuits that involve Jody Kriss, demanding huge amounts of money which were based on threats of using stolen evidence and blackmail. No end is in sight.